Source Code

You can install Subversion by compiling
its source code release directly, or
you can install one of the prepackaged
binaries if there is one for your operating system. Unless a
release has "alpha", "beta", or "rc" in
its name, it is tested and considered stable for production
use.

When upgrading, just install "on top of" the older release.
Subversion 1.x is forward-compatible with any newer 1.y. No
repository upgrade is required. As long as client and server both
have the same major release number (1), olders clients will work
with newer servers and newer clients will work with older servers.
The only caveat is that if the client and server minor release
numbers don't match (e.g., 1.0 and 1.1), then some of the features
of the newer release may not be activated.

The project also produces nightly source code snapshots based upon the
latest development sources. These are available as
nightly
source releases, and are only recommended for people who would like to
test cutting-edge new features. These are not for production use!